Understanding Trauma

 
 

What is Trauma?

Trauma is an umbrella term used in both medical and mental health settings. In the medical world, trauma is about the damage that has occurred to the body. Treatment is typically focused on the repair of those physical wounds and creating circumstances where the body can work on healing itself as much as possible. Trauma in the mental health world involves both the emotional and physical impacts that occur. Trauma can change how the mind perceives what is happening to the body (sense of physical safety), our relationships (feelings of connectedness), and our identity (sense of self). Treatment is focused on helping the person become aware of the source of their wounds, how a person has made meaning out of that experience, and working towards (like the medical model), creating circumstances where the body can work on healing itself as much as possible.

Trauma’s impact on the Body

Because trauma impacts both physical and emotional perceptions, what is experienced by the individual who was traumatized, and what is witnessed by people around that person are expressions of distress. The following is a list of some of these symptoms, but by no means is all inclusive as each person's experience of trauma is unique to them:

  • Emotional Overwhelm

  • Numbing or Feeling Nothing

  • Impulsivity - self-destructiveness

  • Insomnia or Hypersomnia

  • Nightmares and/or flashbacks

  • Chronic pain (headaches, stomach aches, back, neck, etc)

  • Autoimmune diseases

  • Depression and or hopelessness

  • Anxiety and/or Panic attacks

  • Agoraphobia

  • Addictions

  • Eating Disorders

  • Feeling not in your body

  • Memory problems

  • Paranoia or Mistrust of Others

Trauma Informed Care

The concept of trauma-informed care is, unfortunately, lacking in many places that should recognize when a person struggling with trauma walks through their door. Other places, which have at least provided some training and implemented certain practices or policies around trauma-informed care, still often fail to know how to actually support and treat a person experiencing traumatic symptoms.

When looking for help to manage your symptoms, it is not only important to know whether the place you are seeking help from has training and policies in trauma-informed care, but also whether it has training in treating complex trauma and dissociative disorders.

For most people who have not been significantly impacted by life traumas—or who have only experienced a single traumatic event—this type of research may not seem as critical. However, if you mentally checked off many of the symptoms from the previous list on trauma’s impact on the body, then ensuring you receive the right care can help you avoid being re-traumatized or further harmed by the very people who are supposed to help you.